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This month's issue features an update on the Foresight Linux 2.0 development and release dates, upcoming speaking engagements by members of the Foresight Linux team, and an introduction and overview to PackageKit.

Here's what we know beyond doubt. First, the Linux desktop is gaining in popularity. Second, it's doing so at the expense of the Windows desktop. After that, things get muddy. For example, our recent DesktopLinux survey results, clearly show that there is simply more interest in Linux desktop. After all, more than twice as many people filled out our survey this year when compared to the 2006 survey.

Standards expert and attorney Andrew Updegrove has predicted that on Sept. 4 the International Organization for Standards will announce that the draft ISO specification based on Microsoft's Office Open XML formats failed to make the standardization grade.

Currently, GNU/Linux users with Nvidia graphics cards have two choices: Either use the proprietary drivers and violate their free software principles, or use the free nv driver and do without 3-D acceleration. The Nouveau project is working to overcome this dilemma by producing its own set of fully functional free Nvidia drivers. We talked to Stephane Marchesin and Ben Skeggs, two of the active developers in Nouveau, about the history of the project and the current status of its work.

For many open source enthusiasts, the problem is finding the funds to help support their favorite open source projects, which include various Linux distros. It's not that we do not have the money, it's the method of forwarding the necessary funds that's the problem.

SimplyMEPIS has never been my first choice of a Linux OS. I was surprised at how familiar looking it really was. Check out my short screenshot tour as well as my short flash video of SimplyMEPIS 7.0 Beta.

Blue GNU got Jim Sansing to talk about the fairly new RenaissanceCore IDS project, and what they have been able to accomplish. It's certainly a project you might want to consider, especially if security is your gig.

Ingo Molnar reviewed Roman Zippel's Really Fair Scheduler code, suggesting that much of the work was similar to that which was being done by Peter Zijlstra, "all in one, we don't disagree, this is an incremental improvement we are thinking about for 2.6.24. We do disagree with this being positioned as something fundamentally different though - it's just the same thing mathematically, expressed without a "/weight" divisor, resulting in no change in scheduling behavior. (except for a small shift of CPU utilization for a synthetic corner-case)"

Our first look at the new Mandriva 2008. Only in beta form at the moment we thought a short screenshot tour would be nice... Enjoy...

Public announcements of how P members of ISO have voted on OOXML are now rolling in one at a time, and the trend thus far is meaningfully weighted towards "No with comments." If this was a month ago, that would already be enough to block approval. Here's why.

Today, I read a short note in the latest (print issue) c’t magazine about Singapore Airlines, who currently assemble Panasonic PCs into each seat of their new Airbus A380 fleet. All of the systems will run a Red Hat-based Linux variant on a VIA hardware, and screen sizes differ from 10.6″ in economy to 23″ in first class. Fasten your seatbelts, ladies, gentlemen - and penguins...

As with Firefox, you can extend Thunderbird's functionality by installing extensions. Mozilla's official extension repository has quite a few nifty tools on offer, and which ones you choose to install depends entirely on your needs. There are, however, a few extensions that you might find indispensable no matter how you use Thunderbird.

With his older notebook starting to show its age, Alastair Otter decides to upgrade to a ThinkPad X60 running Ubuntu and learns how far Ubuntu has come in the past two releases.

If you need XFCE desktop with window eye candy, speed and reliability, checkout Zenwalk Linux 4.8 Beta.

LXer Feature: 03-Sep-2007

If my math-fu is anything to go by, it looks like Microsoft's Office Open XML will not become an ISO standard today. Various websites around the world are all busy tallying the votes as the news is dripping in. If their tally is correct then OOXML has been turned down by a very narrow margin. OOXML needed 2/3 of the P members to vote "yes", after subtracting abstains. With 5 abstains out of 41 P members, that means 24 "yes" votes. With 13 "no" votes already cast that means only 23 possible "yes" votes remain. Talk about a narrow margin.

[ Update: ISO confirmed Sander is good in math, and was right! - hkwint ]

The target of this posting is to make mentioned installation easy for any person regardless his Solaris Administration experience. Create Solaris HVM VM profile - /etc/xen/vm/Solaris.hvm

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Plasma continues to take shape. Continued improvements in KGPG and KDevelop. More KVTML format conversion work across KDE-Edu applications. Theme improvements in KDE Games. A new game, KSimili, is imported into playground/games. Initial work on a Kalzium KPart for 3d molecular viewing. A redesigned configuration module for colours in KDE. Support for autodetection of gphoto2 cameras using Solid in Digikam. Annotation DRM support in okular. Work on threading in Mailody. Orca screenreader support through Kross scripting in KSpread. Continued development on KChart 2. Initial work on a Sonnet-based spellchecker for KOffice. Development on Eigen 2 is restarted to follow a different implementation strategy. Blitz is renamed QImageBlitz. The release schedule for KDE 4.0. is officially pushed back two months. KDE 4.0 Beta 2 tagged for release.

From reader feedback, the author of "6 Great Linux Productivity Apps" returns with four more highly-suggested applications, bringing the total to 10. This time, he adds on more applications specific to certain jobs and hobbies, with applications such as Scribus and OO.org

Technical Committee 182 decided on August 30th to accept Microsoft format Office Open XML as an ISO standard. Another committee already voted against OOXML last week, but the KT 182 decision is the final vote of Poland (most likely).

The open source instant messaging (IM) program Pidgin is now available in Afrikaans, thanks to the efforts of Translate.org.za.